Moving up: For some teachers, good news at last

The Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) has promoted 140 lecturers working in federal government colleges from BPS-17 to 18 under the upgradation scale.

The departmental promotion committee (DPC), which held meetings at CADD last week, finalised the promotions of the lecturers in the first phase of the process under the Prime Minister’s Package announced in October 2010.

A Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) official privy to the meeting told The Express Tribune that the DPC held last week promoted 86 female and 54 male college lecturers from BPS-17 to 18. The official added that the minutes of the meeting would be approved on Monday and a notification would be issued by Tuesday. After the notification, another DPC would be held to consider the promotions of lecturers in BPS-18, the official said.

Federal Government Teachers Association (FGTA) welcomed the development. However, they expressed doubt about the development due to the absence of a formal notification.

FGTA General Secretary Tahir Mehmood said that the association is planning to besiege FDE this week if the notification about promotions is not issued. “We have learnt that a DPC has been formed only for the promotion of teachers from BPS-17, but there is no progress on the cases of the teachers working in BPS-18 and above,” he said.

All government employees get their house rent allowance in advance, but teachers are deprived of this right due to unknown reasons, and our requests are ignored at every level without any justification, he said. He also raised the issue about advance rent allowances, saying
while other government employees got their house rents in advance, the teachers did not.

“We teachers think that CADD is responsible for all the delaying tactics and it is incapable of carrying out its job due to being overburdened,” he said.

Colleges Director Malik Mehmood Akhtar insisted that they will make another DPC “soon” for the promotion of teachers in BPS-18 and above.

Commenting on the house rent issue, he blamed the CADD’s failure to release sufficient funds for the FDE’s failure to pay house rent in advance, adding that it is making efforts to get funds released by the finance division to settle the issue.